China Names 14 Generals Suspected of Corruption

BEIJING — China’s military authority on Monday released a list of 14 generals who are under investigation or have been convicted of graft, among them the son of one of China’s once highest-ranking generals.

The generals were the latest prominent officers to fall under President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anticorruption campaign.

Published on the official website of the People’s Liberation Army three days before China’s rubber-stamp legislature convenes for its annual meeting in Beijing, the list identifies a host of leading officers, the majority of whom are in the political and logistics departments of the military, navy, missile corps and other branches.

The investigators’ focus on the military bureaucracy highlights two distinct types of corruption that the Communist Party believes undermine military readiness, experts say: bribery in political departments relating to the sale of positions; and embezzlement within logistics departments, which handle large amounts of money as well as contracts.

Among those being investigated is Maj. Gen. Guo Zhenggang, the son of Guo Boxiong, the retired vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission, which oversees the 2.3 million members of China’s armed forces, the world’s largest.

General Guo, 45, the deputy political commissar of military command in the coastal province of Zhejiang, was put under investigation last month, suspected of “serious legal violations and criminal offenses,” a common official euphemism for corruption.

In what appeared to be a well-timed media campaign coordinated to discredit the general, the investigative magazine Caijing published a long exposé of his family’s corrupt land dealings online, 10 minutes after the list of generals was released.

According to the article, General Guo’s wife and mother-in-law were sued by investors after their real estate company took in over 500 million renminbi, more than $80 million, to build a five-story hardware market that was never completed.

Speculation that members of the Guo family were being investigated on corruption charges has swirled for months, despite the government’s attempts to keep their names off social media. Last year, the elder Mr. Guo, once the military’s top uniformed officer, was rumored to have tried to flee the country dressed in women’s clothing.

Although there was no proof verifying the rumor, censors quickly blocked search terms like “Guo + dress in drag” on the popular microblog platform Sina Weibo, according to China Digital Times, a website based in Berkeley, Calif., that covers China news and digital media. Mr. Guo has not officially been accused of corruption.

The military notice also announced that Lan Weijie, a former deputy commander in the central province of Hubei, was sentenced to life in prison in January for accepting bribes, owning property purchased with “unidentified sources” and the illegal possession of firearms.

Last year, China’s widening military corruption scandal ensnared the military’s former No. 2 official, Xu Caihou, who was indicted in October on bribery charges. Mr. Xu is one of the highest-ranking targets of the anticorruption campaign begun by President Xi, who is also head of the Central Military Commission.

Mr. Xi has vowed to clean up the military as part of his campaign to strengthen party rule by reining in corruption. The campaign comes as China is upgrading its military capabilities to bolster claims over disputed maritime territories in the South and East China Seas, with an eye on countering the influence of the United States in Asia and the Pacific.

On Monday, the People’s Liberation Army published a separate commentary on its website lauding the investigations as proof that the military was serious about fighting corruption. “They show the military’s courage to cut the poison off the bones with a knife and make steel out of raging fire,” it said, adding, “Let us praise the People’s Army that is truly worthy of the people’s trust.”

But the military’s anticorruption drive also appears intended to fortify Mr. Xi’s hold on power by targeting rival factions and alerting members of his own about the limits of corruption he will tolerate, according to Phillip C. Saunders, director of the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University in Washington.

So far, investigators have only investigated former senior members of the Central Military Commission, rather than those appointed by Mr. Xi.

“It seems to be strategic in who they’re going after and not going after,” Mr. Saunders said. “There are people being made an example of within the P.L.A., but it’s not the people at the very top. This achieves the purpose of warning them to tone down corruption without the political cost.”

Correction:

An article on Tuesday about the Chinese military authority’s release of a list of 14 generals who are under investigation or have been convicted of graft misstated the rank of Guo Zhenggang, one of those under investigation. He is a major general, not a rear admiral.

Mia Li contributed research.

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